Law firm targets angry Vodafone customers

A law firm wants to recruit consumers who left Vodafone for a class action against the telco. Source: AAP

A LAW firm wants to recruit 700,000 Australian consumers who left Vodafone for a class action against the telco.

Law firm Piper Alderman is targeting disgruntled consumers who suffered call drop-out, reception issues, weak data and poor customer service in 2010 and 2011.

The firm had 23,000 people register their interest at the height of the company's network failure, but now wants those consumers and any others to formally register for a class action.

Lawyer Sasha Ivantsoff, the partner leading the action, said the firm had recently secured funding through LCM Litigation Fund and was ready to begin the case.

"We are ready to go and provided that a sufficient number of people sign up, we will be filing proceedings within three months," Mr Ivantsoff told reporters at the company's Sydney headquarters on Tuesday.

"Twenty-three thousand people is a good number, but we'd like to get more people."

Mr Ivantsoff said there were seven million sim cards on issue in 2010, but 700,000 of those were no long active.

"We assume that 700,000 people have left Vodafone. We would like to capture all of them and more."

Patrick Coope, LCM managing director, estimates the case is worth tens of millions of dollars.

Vodafone Australia says it hasn't been contacted by the company in two years.

Mr Ivantsoff said he would contact Vodafone once the company had "something meaningful to put to them".

But telecommunications consumer group, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), said consumers would be better off taking their complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO).

Hutchison Telecommunications, which half-owns Vodafone Hutchison Australia, reported a $393.5 million loss for calendar 2012 on Monday.

"This class action comes at a terrible time for Vodafone, and we want to see things improve for the company," ACCAN spokeswoman Elise Davidson said.

"If Vodafone decides to exit the Australian market, we will be left with a network duopoly - Telstra and Optus."

The legal move comes more than a year after Vodafone said it was working hard to improve its service.

This followed a damning report which outlined more than 12,000 complaints ranging from patchy network coverage to poor customer service.

Vodafone last month decided to wind up its Crazy John's mobile phones and accessories brand and said as many as 300 jobs were at risk as the company decided how it could deploy staff.

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